Tag Archives: entertaining

We’ve caught the Cake Pop bug! They’re not only delicious, but also cute and fun to make. Plus, it’s a chance to unleash your creativity: the shape, color and design possibilities are endless. Since we’re thinking about the Superbowl, we decided to make Football-themed cakes. Follow along to learn how to make them–but of course, feel free to personalize them to make them your very own!

Here’s what you’ll need:

Football Pops

1 box of chocolate cake mix (makes about 48 pops)

1 container of chocolate cake frosting

Almond bark (aka candy coating)

1 bar of white chocolate

Candy sticks

Parchment Paper

1 small sandwich bag

Football Field Base

1 half-circle-shaped piece of craft foam

1 bowl that fits the craft foam

foil

vanilla frosting and green food coloring

white chocolate, leftover from the pops

Here’s what you do:

First, make cake mix according to the directions on the box. Once it’s baked and cooled, crumble cake in a bowl. Mix in the container of cake frosting.

Refrigerate or freeze your cake/frosting mix until firm. Once it can be shaped easily with your fingers, remove from refrigerator/freezer and roll into balls shaped like footballs (or anything you like).

Now it’s time to insert the candy sticks into the cake. We recommend dipping the ends of the sticks in some melted almond bark–it prevents the pops from falling off the sticks.

Melt a small amount of the almond bark, dip ends of candy sticks into it and insert into cake pops. Then, place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and freeze until firm.

Once they’re hard, they’re ready to dip in chocolate! Take them out of the freezer, cover your work surface with parchment paper and melt enough almond bark that you can easily dip the pops. Then, dip each pop into the melted almond bark and place it on the parchment paper to harden.

Now, to make them really look like footballs, they need white chocolate laces! Melt a small amount of white chocolate and place in small sandwich bag. Cut a small part of the corner off of the bag as if you were piping a cake. Then, draw your laces on with the white chocolate.

Now they’re ready to eat and enjoy!

We wanted to give them a decorative base, and we thought it would look really cute to have them on something that looked like a football field. Here’s how we did it:

Get a piece of craft foam in the shape of a half circle. Find a mixing bowl that it fits into. Wrap the foam in tinfoil and place it in the bowl.
Cover tinfoil with something green. We used white frosting colored green, but you can use Easter grass, tissue paper, etc. We drew some lines with leftover melted white chocolate.

Place end of candy stick in mixing bowl, and admire your work…then eat one (or two). Delicious!

We love new recipes, and we especially love trying recipes from our friends and customers! Heidi, our Creative Director, wanted to make something new for the game on Sunday, so she asked our Facebook fans for their best appetizer recipes. We picked our favorite–Lil’ Smokies and Bacon, from Lori–and whipped up a batch on camera to show you just how easy it is to make! It was a nice way to end a week of hard work putting together the fall catalog. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look as we cook up this tasty treat.

To see the full video, click here! The recipe is at the bottom of the page.

Heidi, our Creative Director, jots down a rough script. Are we rolling?These Lil’ Smokies are ready to go! Lights, Camera, Action! Heidi takes the finished Smokies out of the oven…mmm, smell that bacon! Yuuuummy! Chris, one of our copywriters, helps us sample the finished product.

They were delicious! No matter who wins this Sunday, we definitely found a winner in this recipe! Thanks for sharing it with us, Lori!

Lori’s Lil’ Smokies

1 package of bacon

2 packages of Little Smokies

brown sugar (about 1/2 c)

toothpicks

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with foil.

2. Cut the slices of bacon into thirds.

3. Wrap each piece of bacon around a smokie, then put a toothpick through it to hold it all together. Place the smokies on the foil-lined baking sheet.

4. Sprinkle brown sugar over the smokies. Don’t worry if it gets all over the pan–it will all caramelize.

It’s almost 2011! Hard to believe, but I’m excited for the New Year and hope that you are, too! Hopefully, it’s filled with lots of good times spent with friends and family…and of course, good food.

Black-eyed peas are a traditional New Year’s dish, thought to bring good luck. I just think they taste great–if they happen to bring some luck, too, I’m not going to complain! If you want to make a dish with these tasty legumes for the holiday, here’s a good recipe adapted from southernfood.about.com: